To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism [Hardcover]

From an award-winning historian, a new global history of Communism. 

“With vivid prose, McMeekin punctures many myths of communism … This is history as a warning.” —Washington Examiner 

Winner of the Hayek Book Prize

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia may no longer be Communist, Communism and sympathy for Communist ideas have proliferated across the globe.

InTo Overthrow the World, Sean McMeekin investigates the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes. Tracing Communism’s ascent from theory to practice, McMeekin ranges from Karl Marx’s writings to the rise and fall of the USSR under Stalin to Mao’s rise to power in China to the acceleration of Communist or Communist-inspired policies around the world in the twenty-first century. McMeekin argues, however, that despite the endurance of Communism, it remains deeply unpopular as a political form. Where it has arisen, it has always arisen by force.

Blending historical narrative with cutting-edge scholarship,To Overthrow the Worldrevolutionizes our understanding of the evolution of Communism—an idea that seemingly cannot die.

Sean McMeekinis a professor of history at Bard College. The award-winning author of several books, includingStalins War,The Russian Revolution,July 1914, andThe Ottoman Endgame, McMeekin lives in Clermont, New York.

Winner of the Hayek Book Prize“The story of communism is more accurately read as a history of violence than as a history of ideas. Mr. McMeekin bears this out vividly, drawing on a deep well of knowledge about a story of human depravity that deserves to be told. It is well worth reading.”Wl&